Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a configuration for printing striplike print carriers in a postage meter and/or addressing machine.
Printing in postage meters was heretofore primarily carried out through the use of ink rollers or thermal print heads. Recently, attempts are being made to extend the advantages of ink jet printing to the postage meter field as well.
The printing is carried out in a contactless manner through the use of ink jet print heads, as is seen in German Patent DE 44 24 771 C1 and German Utility Model DE 94 20 734 U1.
In that connection, a postage meter and/or addressing machine has been proposed in German Patents DE 196 05 015 C1 and DE 196 45 363 C1, which correspond to U.S. application Ser. No. 08/791,629, filed Jan. 31, 1997, in which the print carriers, referred to below as letters (which includes envelopes) are advanced upright, tilting slightly to the rear, with the aid of contact-pressure elements that are secured to a revolving conveyor belt. The letters rest on a guide plate in which a printing window is provided and in which the ink jet print head is permanently installed. The printing window is mounted at a level above the conveying plane of the conveyor belt in which the imprint is to be made on the letter. The contact-pressure elements are disposed in such a way that they can move resiliently toward and away from the guide plate. The letters are engaged through the use of the contact-pressure elements in a force-locking manner, on their side remote from the guide plate, during the process of conveying and printing. A force-locking connection is one which connects two elements together by force external to the elements, as opposed to a form-locking connection which is provided by the shapes of the elements themselves.
The guide plate, which is constructed as a smooth, flat plate, is provided with slide rails and has an insert with molded-in slide rails and with a printing window. The insert is made of a nonrusting metal.
The individual contact-pressure element is constructed as a resiliently supported bracket with a contact-pressure plate, having an outside which is partially coated with a friction lining. The contact-pressure plate is formed of plastic, preferably a polyamide. The friction lining is preferably made of polyurethane. The contact-pressure plate is partially provided with the friction lining on its end surface in such a way that it can only come to rest in a force-locking manner on a letter. If there is no letter present, the contact-pressure plate slides with the unoccupied smooth part along a slide rail, and the friction lining is located in the open. Accordingly, the friction lining is thinner than a distance by which the slide rail protrudes from the base.
The printing window for postage meter printing is mounted at such a distance from the conveying plane of the conveyor belt that a lower edge of the postage imprint maintains a spacing of 40 mm from an adjacent edge of the letter, which is specified by postal regulations.
If an address is also to be printed, then the associated printing window is correspondingly higher.
In order to provide a prescribed franking imprint width of one inch, or 25.4 mm, an upper edge of the postage imprint must accordingly be spaced apart from an adjacent edge of the letter by around 14 mm.
At least with bulky mail there is a need for attaching postage and addresses through the use of self-adhesive strips. Accordingly, instead of a letter, a strip for imprinting has to be placed in the postage meter. A typical standard width for the postage meter strips is 44 mm. If that kind of "narrow" postage strip is then imprinted in that postage meter, then the postage imprint must have a spacing of 14.6 mm from one edge of the strip and a spacing of 4 mm from the other edge of the strip, because of the above-described fixed spacings. Since those postage strips as a rule are disposed as self-adhesive strips on a correspondingly wider backing strip, there is a danger that the smaller spacing can become so slight that the postage imprint will no longer fit entirely on the postage meter strip.
Given the above-mentioned situation, printing an address on narrow strips through the associated printing window would not be possible at all.